Considerations on the management of banks with numerous branches in the common market countries. Variations on the theme of productivity

Abstract

The work is concerned with developing a general concept of productivity in banking. The study finds its origin in the simple observation that if the number of staff in large banks of different countries is divided by total balances or deposits, the quotient will vary from one bank to another, and even more, from the banks in one country to those in others. This criterion implies that the volume of balances or deposits equates banking operations. Thus, for the sake of simplicity, the author takes the ratio of staff/deposits to indicate the productivity of labour. The study is based on the data for the financial year 1959 for the major banks with large numbers of branches in Federal Germany, Belgium, France, Italy and the Netherlands. The methodology used is that of counting the operations characteristic of the main traditional departments of a bank and the number of employees by department, before relating these numbers to the deposits of all maturities of the clientele.

JEL: G21, J24